Andrew Dillin believes that a principal cause of aging and aging-related diseases is a person’s declining ability to manage protein clumps in their cells, and his research is paving the way for novel treatments for neurodegenerative diseases. His hypothesis is that many of the signaling pathways that impinge on the aging process do so, in part, by directly modulating the molecular machinery that assists in protein folding and maintenance of their functional conformations, from both a static and dynamic perspective. His research group is divided into two related research clusters: one focuses on the identification of the molecular pathways of aging, and the second investigates how these pathways affect the fidelity of protein homeostasis, with an emphasis on diseases associated with protein misfolding. His group is also looking for aggregation and disaggregation pathways that are conserved in worms and mice in hopes of finding clues that one day will help patients with neurodegenerative disease. For more information, check out the Dillin lab website, https://mcb.berkeley.edu/labs/dillin/content/welcome-dillin-lab.